Rosey Posey

My latest cake creation!

 

The design of this cake is pretty much the same like my tiger lily cake.

Only different flowers this time.

Roses... I have always loved roses ever since I started my cake decorating adventure in mid 2009 (Gosh! It has been so LONG! I wish time would pass by slower...).

Roses and cakes (More on the traditional side though..) just seem to click together very well.. Mmm.

It has been a while since I made roses, the last time I made them was during my Squire's kitchen diploma (Took it like a month or 2 before the ICCA Annual Cake competition in October.)!

Since I REALLY REALLY wanted this batch (I assume this is the 5th time I made roses in my whole caking life.) of roses to look EXACTLY like the real ones, I actually READ (fine..) the FIRST half of the instructions     

in one of Alan Dunn's rose err... Page of the book?  

I find it a challenge reading his instructions sometimes, maybe because there are too many words and too few pictures? 

  I was finally able to make a perfect (Well to my standard, which has to be mistaken for real ones.) gum paste rose! 

YAHOO! (.com!)

The only part in rose making that NEVER went into my mind (Or maybe it is just the plain toughest part in rose making, for me.) was how to start off...

Making the bud...

AND I MANAGED TO FINALLY MAKE A PERFECT BUD! (On my first try! This time...)

Thank you Alan Dunn... Somehow, even though your instructions are horrible (Or maybe just boring or maybe it is just me..)! 

I guess if you look a picture of a rose and instructions 100000x a day you will be able to make it, eh? 

I took 2 days to complete this cake.

(Ehem.. 70% Of the days was spent on Cooking Mama on FaceBook! Yay! Finally! FaceBook has awesome games to play!)

Half way through the process of making the petals I realized that I DIDN'T have a rose vainer! (I know, imagine THAT!) 

So I invented my own..! 

It's top SECRET!

Plus it gives so much finer detail than store bought ones and it costs 2% off the price (Of the store bought ones.) so 'Tra la la' for me! 

The rose making went through quite 'Breeze-y-ly'!

Dusting the rose...

I ALWAYS find this part so BORING! 

Ugh... There are like a BILLION petals to dust all in the SAME way!

I dusted them with tangerine (CK) and shaded tree (Sugar art).

As for the leafs...

I created my own vainer and technique too!

I am a bit of a budget caker (Most of the time..).. I invent tools/techniques and save where I can! I am glad I don't have a huge wad of cash to spend when ever I want, where ever I want. If I did I wouldn't have created my FAVORITE tools and techniques in sugar..! Smiles*

The leafs were dusted with shaded green (Sugar art. My favorite green for leafs!) and kiko (Sugar art.) for the burnt effect you find in most rose leafs.

I am REALLY proud of my roses and foliage this time round!

The cake is just plain butter cake, iced with butter cream and a 'Border-ed' with a simple bead border.

The 'Texture' of the icing (Yes, I did it on purpose.) was inspired by the first picture you see inside Alan Dunn's The Wedding Cake Decorator's Bible: A Resource of Mix-and-Match Designs and Embellishments!

Hope you liked my latest cake!

Comments are more than welcome!

~K

P.S Here are some pictures of my 'past' roses!

Above: My rose bud (I don't have one of my fully bloomed one unfortunately..) from The Squire's kitchen diploma. 
Below: My roses from Wilton Course 3! (My 2nd try at roses! My 1st try is just too embarrassing to upload!)

Melacca in Pictures

It has been a BILLION years since I had my last blog post, hope I have not been forgotten by my followers!

 Oh well, that's what you get when you follow a lazy blogger, eh?

Anyways, I found a passion for photography a few months ago and I have been 'practicing' my photography skill during our holidays (Food photography is good too... But I LOVE taking pictures of our Malaysian err... Drat, How do I put it... Country side? Yeah, I think that's the word!) and road trips..

I have a feeling they are getting better, holiday after holiday..! 

Here are my few favorites out of the hundreds I took during our 3D 2N road trip to Melacca..

 Above: I LOVE winding down the windows and sticking my hands and head out (When there are no humongous trucks carrying palm fruits zooming pass!)  when we reach the 'Kumpung' areas where the wind is so fresh and crisp..  

 Above and below: Pengkalan Balak Beach.

 Above: We stopped by a beach side Makan stall for lunch! The Malay food was REALLY yummy!

Below: The cute little kitty that I gave my left overs to.. She posed for a billion photos for me!   

 Above: The ONLY thing that I was interested in at the new Planetarium in Air Keroh. The planetarium was REALLY lousy! Not worth going at ALL! There are mostly pictures of space stuffies and videos (Stuff you can get on the internet if you Googled!).. Very little exhibits that were interesting, some things were already broken! The theater was rather interesting because the screen was the ceiling but the movie was HORRIBLE! So 0 stars for the planetarium! 

                                       
                               

 Above: One of the many bridges that cross over the Jalan Laksamana river in Melacca town. 

 Above: Eu Han and his overly chocolate-y Kit Kat ice cream!

Below: The beautiful sky that day.. We were waiting for our river cruise, I was bored so I snapped a billion random photos..!

 Above: We passed a mini theme park called 'Pirate Park' (Or something like that but I am 100% sure it has a 'Pirate' in there somewhere!) and I think this was a pretty good shot of the ferris wheel with the lovely blue sky as the back ground!

Below: I imagined being in Venice when we cruised through this part of the river...

 Above: You should be able to tell that I LOVE the blue sky with puffy white white clouds in my photos!

 Above and below: CHINA TOWN!

 Above: Err... I should send this to Cake Wrecks! (Photo taken in some random bakery we dropped by in town..)

Below: After a long hot and sweaty day, What could be better than mouth freezing ICE KACHANG?!

 Above: La menu...

Below: My Ice kachang that was made specially for ME! (Since I don't like the condense milk, beans and other yucky stuff they have in the normal ones..!)

 Below: We had the Ice kachang here...

 Above: Saint Paul's Church 

Below: The clock tower @ The Stadthuys 

 Above: I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what this is... Blinks*

Below: The marble (I am pretty sure it said marble on the sign board...) statue of Saint Paul.

 

Above: Some crazy overly decorated trishaws!

Below: Inside St Paul's church... There were a billion tomb stones, creepy...

 Above: Some part of A Famosa I guess... No, I do not do much research about this place!

Below: One part of the Queen Victoria fountain in front of Stadthuys.

And that's the end of my photo blog post!

~K

Swathy's Cupcakes

Ouch... I am officially paralyzed on the right side of my body.
Thank you BADminton!

 Despite of my aching shoulder, forearm and wrist (Basically my whole right hand and leg.. Yeesh!), I was able to make these 9 (I..Have..Never..EVER..Made..Less..Than..25..Cupcakes..In..My..Whole..Life. I am so used to having a huge batch of naked cupcakes in frost of me to decorate and now with just 9... Every cupcake is special, VERY special.) cupcakes for one of my best friends and neighbor, Swathy.

Above: I decided to decorate (And paint! See the pink-ish tinge on the cake box? Oh, and I used Wilton Pink food coloring since I didn't have any paint! Haha!!) the cake box since I can't wrap this present up with wrapping paper! I have been addicted to writing like this lately... It is just SO fun.. And colorful!

Below: There are 9 cupcakes but I only took the lucky 7 cupcakes since it looks better this way...
The cupcakes are all vanilla flavored and topped/covered with vanilla butter cream and/or fondant.

Below: This cupcake is my FAVORITE of them all! Maybe because of the rose and colors...
I made the veins very.. err.. deep? in this rose just to give it a more interesting and different look.

I guess they all turned out the way I wanted except for the butterfly printed one...
I need to improve on the dusting!

Anyway...

HAPPY 14TH BIRTHDAY,
SWATHY!!

~K

Badminton 1/11/11

After months of not holding my badminton racket, I finally got the (Pick a word, I am having a hard time deciding.) chance/opportunity/excuse (I make it sound as though I have been forced to not play badminton but it is just maybe I have more interesting things to do these days and my sparing partner/s are not as free as they were a year back.) to pick it up again...

Gripping the racket again was.. Weird.

It felt like a very foreign object, something my hands are not used to gripping to like the time in the ICCA Annual Cake Competition 2010 when I had to make a @!*^%$@! speech on stage... 

Yeah... I still remember little (I guess you could say it is a BIG thing.) things like that, public speaking freaks me out.

I am glad I managed to do that without fainting on stage...

After taking the racket out of the case and giving it a few swings, I still didn't feel comfortable holding it.

I pictured myself dying of embarrassment, not being able to hit the shuttle cork...

I am such a negative person sometimes... Yeesh.

We packed the 4 boys (I had one extra brother today!) into the car and drove off to the badminton court in USJ.

Half way there, I heard Arian (That's my extra brother for the day!) rapping some Eminem song, then Eu Fai sang Bad Romance-Lady Gaga and even Eu Han chipped in with Paparazzi-Lady Gaga ( My brothers listen to way too much Lady Gaga thanks to ME!)..

When I was their age I only knew nursery rhymes!

I feel so.. Outdated and old! Yikes!

After loosing a few rounds I pretty much got the hang of it again.

Never had such a fun time playing badminton in a looooooooong time!

Let alone any sport... Art has made me very un-active? And lazy! Haha!

After an hour or so hitting the shuttle cork non stop, I felt pretty good (And sweaty, exhausted, dehydrated and drop dead tired!)!

I plan to play badminton with CLIC (Hopefully) every week from now on...

~K

Ipoh-Day 1

The past 8 hours has been REALLY awesome!
I hope the rest of the day will be like so...

I was woken up by Mommy at 5 in the morning!
She was busy packing the boy's clothes in my room with the light on (Of course), I am a pretty light sleeper so I got woken up and my brothers were still snoring and looking quite dead-ish..
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get back to sleep, Yeesh..

So I got dressed and went down hugging my favorite pillow looking half asleep (I think I looked like a 5 year old sleep walking), it was surprisingly chilly this morning..
The 'chilly-ness' reminded me of the cold 10 degrees Celsius early mornings in Perth!

Half awake I had my every morning-and-every-other-time-when-I-am-free cup of coffee (Mommy says I am addicted to FaceBook as much as she with coffee! So it becomes my cup of coffee..), Delicious!

After packing all our baggage and 3 deep-in-sleep boys into the car we left for Ipoh..

I am pretty sure (I was half asleep or asleep throughout most of the journey, I took photos of a lot of village scenes, palm and coconut trees, road and sky when I was awake! Speaking.. I mean blogging about pictures.. I forgot to bring the camera adapter to upload the pictures into my lap top! Noooo! I guess YOU will have to wait till I get back home tomorrow! I wish we could stay longer, the hotel is awesome!)  we took the rural road to Ipoh..
Passing every small town...
I find it them SO much nicer than Kuala Lumpur!

Finally! We reached Batu Gajah (Who names a town 'Rock Elephant'?!) to have some 'Kopitiam' breakfast..
Yum yum...

We had Porridge, PAN MEE (Mwa hahahahahha!) and Yong tau foo..
I took a billion photos of the shop houses and old-ish buildings that were in Batu Gajah!
The skype.. Whoops! I mean SKY! (I didn't do it on purpose!) Is SO super nice today...
Reminds me of Perth, Again!
  
1st Stop of the day:

Tin Dredge! (Why on earth call it a 'dredge'?! It reminds me of a grudge... Scary, old and frightening!)

It is Malaysia's only surviving tin dredge (Yes, I just did some research..)!
I thought there were many... Oh well.

It is located in Chendrong, Tanjung Tualang.

I guess it was just okay... I wasn't really impressed by it.
There were no signs or anything when you enter the dredge...
It was just old, dusty, sink-y (It is lob sided! So scary..!), hole-y (The metal or something like that flooring was rotting? I thought it might just collapse and I would fall into the deep, dark hole... Yike!) and it old machines reminded me of 'Jurassic Park'!

So yeah... I didn't enjoy it.

On the way in to the Tin dredge we saw a 'Buffalo farm or something' (I have horrible memory... I couldn't even remember what I did this morning without asking!) sign.
We decided to drop by the 'farm' after the Tin dredge.

(Just got back from the pool! The water is FREEZING! It was like swimming in a steam/water fall! the pool was new so it LOOKED nice but I could not enjoy it, at ALL! Just put 1 toe in and you get shivers all over your body in no time! Anyway... I managed to dunk my self in and freeze! For the first time in my life I sun bathed ! It felt like heaven.. Ahhh! As if I am not burnt enough already! It was fun but I am NEVER EVER going to swim in the pool again!)

Cows, cows and more buffaloes!
Snaps a billion more photos* (The scenery was fabulous!)

Next stop: Kellie's Castle!

I didn't expect much over here, it didn't look like much after all!
But oh... I was wrong, VERY wrong!

It was a pretty hot afternoon and the moment you entered the castle it instantly cools you down...
Many corridors, rooms, underground cellars, secret stair cases to explore!

The first underground passage we went into was the wine cellar!
It was VERY dark! (They should really install some lights!)
Luckily we had some torch lights!
I felt rather er.. Scared? going down the narrow windy stair case... Deeper and deeper underground.

I assume Kellie must have loved wine because he had a billion wine rack thingys!

My least favorite room in the whole castle was the linen room...
There were lots of wood that were cemented with the walls to make shelves, they reminded me of a morgue!
The size and width of it was just nice to fit a human body... Creepy.
I have a feeling that I have a super wild imagination...    

I enjoyed the secret escape staircases (They were steep, windy and high. I imagined myself as a duchess escaping from a castle invasion, I guess it is nice having a wild imagination some times!)  from the rooms and being on the roof top? of the castle!
I felt like I really was 'King of the world' (That has REALLY wobbly knees!)!
The breeze up there was awesome!
Not to mention the fact that the skype (Not again! I mean SKY SKY SKYYY!) was so blue, we were surrounded by oil palm estates and jungle, if only I could just pause that moment and not have wobbly knees!

My visit to Kellie's castle was just plain AWESOME!

We finally made our way to Ipoh town at noon..

I don't think there is much to blog about the rest of the day in Ipoh town..
Eat, sleep, pool, doggies, visiting and more eating!

~K

P.S
Please wait for the pictures!
They will be in their places in this post the moment I get home!  

Ipoh.

(Above: Taken somewhere along the way to Cameron Highlands.. I amuse it must be weird having the title of this post 'Ipoh' but having a picture of some Cameron Highland-ish place.. I think they look kind of the same, Road, trees and sky all the way! I will update the Cameron Highlands 'Road' picture with a on the way to Ipoh one tomorrow when/if I get online!)

Hmm... We will be departing to Ipoh early tomorrow AM (Did I mention I hate getting up before 10 AM? Being a home schooler has made me rather lazy over the years, eh?).

It is already 12.30 AM... I doubt I will be able to sleep!

Rather excited... Somehow.

It will only be a short 2D 1N trip...
The plans Mommy made makes it sound like tis' going to be a rather tiring trip, going here and there, all around Ipoh-ish areas..

I do hope I will have time to blog and upload photos in between!

~K

An evening of unexpectedly good food and music..

Jeez... Another one of those days were I can't pick a proper title for my post!
Blogger should really create a 'Help-you-get-a-status' application to help bloggers like me!
Okay... Never mind the top 2 sentences!
I got a TITLE!
It wasn't a surprise party or things like that but it was a change from a lazy day at home..

An hour or so ago we were driving along Old Klang RD checking out the road side food stalls, deciding what to have for dinner...
We passed a electronics store...
Which reminded Mommy we needed a new kettle, we dropped by that store to get it.

I was pretty reluctant to get down from the car as I was hungry and when I am hungry the only thing in my mind is FOOD!
If I don't get it... You are dead meat.

I was welcomed into the shop by Lady GaGa's Bad Romance, it cheered me up. INSTANTLY.
The song was ending...
My cheerful-ness turned in to hungry-ness back again..

New song starts...
Music intro*
Cherry cherry boom boom GAGA..!

Eh eh (Nothing else I can say)-Lady GaGa

This store really tries hard to keep their angry, grumpy customers HAPPY!

After that was...
My all time favorite song, I Like It-Enrique Iglesias! (Finally! I am able to spell his name with out checking out  Google-ing the spelling!)

They played it...
TWICE!
Awesome..? Or Maybe it was just something wrong with the stereo (Or my ears!).. Hmm.

I started feeling rather freaked out...
Like someone has been invading my mind to find out what I LOVE (Especially when I am making sugar flower petals! Songs that make me want to dance help me not fall asleep on my 100th rose petal that I am making that day... So yeah, I Like It pumped me with energy for most of my late 2010 cakes. For some reason my wildest wish in this life time is to make a cake for either Enrique or GaGa... One day Karen Cuppy Cake, One fine day..)  listening to...

My family and the shop assistants must be wondering what's wrong with me, it is impossible to not at least sing and nod your head to the songs they played!
Hahaha!

If only they played Hero (I was just having a look at the music video and I was like: Is THAT Jennifer Love Hewitt?! Googles* Owh Mai Gawd! It is! Faints*.. I thought she was only that actress who sees ghosts! Haha!)or Takin' Back My Love after that!
But unfortunately it was *!@%#!*&! Justin Beiber.. Pukes*

Oh well... Shop keeper or who ever you are at that store that invaded my mind to make me happy, you succeeded!    
I left with one of those songs stuck in my head repeating, repeating, repeat...
Oh, and Mommy with her new kettle of course..!

FOOD...

After driving further down Old Klang RD we decided to have err... Street food?
Well tis' by the road and ON the street so tis' street food right?

After parking the car and walking down the row of food stalls (Satay, Bak kut teh, Laksa.. Etc) we decided to have Pan Mee (Wow! I can't believe Pan Mee made its way to Wikipedia!).

Of all the food on that street why PAN MEE?!
I have a phobia (Well not exactly a phobia but it would be one of the last 'noodle-y dish' I would eat!) of Pan Mee...
All remember why I have kept away from it was because when I was 5 or 6-ish my GrandMa made it at home...
It tasted awful..! (I hope she will never reads this post!)
So I haven't touched it ever since, until TODAY!

It was surprisingly VERY good! Drools* (I want seconds!)
Scoffs down the whole bowl in a few seconds*

It was different... Just different...
The noodles were flat pieces of dough rolled out on a pasta machine on #5 or #6 (Or it just looks like so... Just guessing! Didn't have a chance to go up THAT close to see what the setting? was.) and it was ripped (Yes ripped!) up into 3" squares...
I think they were more like err... flat, big huge flat square-ish pieces of dough!
(I am just wondering on what my Malaysian readers are thinking of me while they read about this Pan Mee part... Blinks*)

Oh jeez... Describing it makes me hungry...
Super SUPPER Time!

~K  

HS Picnic @ TTDI Park

Whew! What a nice morning! (More on the afternoon side but never mind..)

It was a home school new year meet up thingy and we had pot luck...
Guess what I brought!

CUPPA-DEE-CAKES Of course!

I made a small batch of my favorite vanilla cupcakes (It is my favorite because... Because... It is just PERFECT!) in my Big Baby (That is what I call my commercial stand mixer. I some how find the size of it just right compared to my first tiny mixer. I think I like it more than I would like a KA or a Kenwood! But a KA or Kenwood as a gift is always welcome!!) for the pot luck.

My FaceBook status after I finished taking them out of the oven:

Tonight is one of those nights were I can't resist eating my right-out-of-the-oven supah fluffy, crunchy domed top, yummy, irresistible vanilla cupcakes for supper with a glass of cold milk... Om nom nom... I love my cupcake scraps :P


Yeah... I HAD to steal a few odd (I can only fit 25 into a box and I baked 30..) ones for supper! 
I love being a caker you can always get fresh scraps every time you finish decorating/baking cakes/cupcakes..


Woke up earlier than usual (At 9 AM) to ice the cupcakes after they had been cooled over night.
I was thinking this in my head:
These better all be gone! If they don't I might just EXPLODE!


Well... The exploding is because I am clearly NOT a morning person, I like waking up at noon when I can.
So if they don't finish...
All my waking up early work is wasted...


They were just simple butter cream tinted a light lemon-ish yellow Decorating Tip-#1M Star swirls, sprinkled with some Arnott's Hundreds and Thousands and topped with some Wilton Fondant Daisy Shape Cut Outs flowers that were made to look like white daisies and sunflowers.


No pictures of the cupcakes! Sorry!  


Well at the end of the picnic they were long gone and some participants were fighting over the last few to take home...
It was a funny-ish-ly happy moment!


Hearing the comments about them were nice, as usual...


When I wasn't talking about myself and the cupcakes (Which took up most of the time anyways...) I was eating other participant's pot luck food (Haha!!) and listening to the home school news... 


It was a fun and lazy morning/after noon...


Just finished having a movie marathon on my lap top, up in my room, on a stormy evening, under a warm blanket...
Fabulous...


I HEART Lazy Days!


~K

2010ish

2010!.. Errr... I mean 2011! I can't believe it is 2011! Another year gone... Another new year to explore...

I feel guilty not blogging for the past one week or so, my best friend, Thea from Penang visited me during Christmas (It was both our Christmas wishes to see each other again.) came down to visit me in KL!

I spent 90% of the days (Till today.) spending time, catching up with my pal.

The day before Thea came down to KL my Aunt M and my cousins came from Ipoh (My house was loaded with people (From northern states! Hahaha!) and my Mom had planned another one of her 'De-tour-around-KL' for them so since Thea was here we just tagged along with her plan and had LOTS of fun!

(Ahhh! I am getting so distracted (Thea, If you are reading THIS. It is a a GOOD distracted!) with Thea's Christmas present! Lady Gaga's The Fame AND The Fame Monster!! I can't help but sing and nod my head to the song... Smiles*)

We went:

• To my Port Dickson house  
• To Taman Pertanian, Shah Alam, We went cycling, visited the 'Four-season house' and had a picnic.
• To Zoo Negara
• To KLCC, We watched Gulliver Travels and hung out at Kinokuniya.  
• To... More PD!! 

Whew! I am exhausted!
I think I need a break from all the fun we had, are having and going to have!

~K

P.S Here are some photos from here and there and everywhere...

 

Above: KLCC That night

Below: Our BBQ @ PD